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Pentagon sees no change in Russia’s strategic nuclear force posture

By Reuters, May 7, 2024

WASHINGTON, – The Pentagon has not seen a change to Russia’s disposition of its strategic nuclear forces, it said on Monday, despite what it called “irresponsible rhetoric” from Moscow detailing plans for exercises involving the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.

Russia said on Monday it would hold military drills that will include practicing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States. It said the exercises were ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia said on Monday it would hold military drills that will include practicing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States. It said the exercises were ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin

Missile forces in the Southern Military District, aviation and the navy will take part, the defense ministry said.

“We’ve not seen any change in their strategic force posture. Obviously, we’ll continue to monitor,” said U.S. Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson.

The exercise of what Russia calls its non-strategic nuclear forces were aimed at ensuring Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, its defense ministry said.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the drills also aimed to cool down “hotheads” in the West, who Moscow accused of pushing for a direct military confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and Russia………………………….  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-sees-no-change-russias-strategic-nuclear-force-posture-2024-05-06/

May 8, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Forces of Impunity: The US Threatens the International Criminal Court

May 7, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/forces-of-impunity-the-us-threatens-the-international-criminal-court/

The International Criminal Court is a dusty jewel, a creation of heat, tension and manufacture in the international community. Various elements have gone into its creation. As with any international institution which draws its legitimacy from nation states and the like, its detractors are many, the invective against it frequent. Some 124 countries have signed the Rome Charter of 1998 that gives the body its authority and jurisdictional force, but no one is foolish enough to think that its reach can ever be anything but tempered by political consideration and self-interest.

Be it issuing a problematic arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, attempting to investigate alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan, or busying itself with some nasty examples of African despotism, the scope of the body is potentially extensive. At present, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan is sniffing out the prospect of issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials in the context of the war in Gaza. The sniff, however, has come with a rebuking blast from Israel, joined by various politicians in the United States champing at the bit to take a swipe at the body.

Such attacks have only been emboldened by the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, an instrument from 2002 that prohibits federal, state and local governments from furnishing the ICC with assistance in any way while authorising the US president “to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release” of any “US person” or “allied persons” detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request,” of the ICC.

In what is expedient and legally anomalous, Washington has chosen not only to avoid signing the Rome Statute but reject ICC jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories. The ICC begs to differ, noting the acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction on the part of “the Government of Palestine” and its accession to the Rome Statute in January 2015.

In late October 2023, Israel announced that it would not be permitting Khan to enter Israel, signalling its intention to frustrate, as far as possible, his investigative functions. In April this year, Axios revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had requested US President Joe Biden to prevent the ICC from issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials. A broader lobbying effort of the US Congress by the Netanyahu government is also taking place.

On May 1, a bipartisan group of US senators held a virtual meeting with members of seniority from the ICC, worried about the prospect that arrest warrants for top Israel might issue from the prosecutorial pipeline. In a threatening letter to Khan from a dozen Republican senators led by Tom Cotton, the promise for retaliation was unequivocal: “Target Israel, and we will target you.” Issuing such warrants would be “illegitimate and lack legal basis, and, if carried out, will result in severe actions against you and your institution.” They would “not only be a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”

This was hardly novel and was unlikely to have phased Khan or his staff. In June 2020, President Donald Trump implemented an executive order directed at the ICC. The order authorised the blocking of assets and imposed family entry bans into the US in response to the court’s efforts to investigate the alleged commission of war crimes in Afghanistan by US personnel. In September that year, pursuant to the executive order, targeted sanctions were imposed on then ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior prosecution official Phakiso Mochochoko.

Since 2021, the ICC has been vested in examining alleged war crimes committed by both the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinian militants stretching back to the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. “Upon the commencement of my mandate in June 2021,” Khan states, “I put in place for the first time a dedicated team to advance the investigation in relation to the Situation in the State of Palestine.” Its mission is to collect, preserve and analyse “information and communications from key stakeholders in relation to relevant incidents.”

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In November 2023, the office of the prosecutor received a referral from South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros and Djibouti to investigate “the Situation in the State of Palestine.” The referral requests the prosecutor “to vigorously investigate crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court allegedly committed” on various grounds, including, among others, the unlawful appropriation and destruction of private and public properties, the forcible transfer of Palestinians, the unlawful transfer of Israel’s population into Occupied Palestinian Territory and a discriminatory system amounting to apartheid.

The spectacularly brutal Israeli campaign in Gaza following the October 7 attacks by Hamas also enlivened interest in using the ICC’s jurisdiction to investigate allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity and relevant war crimes. But the notable catch, and bound to be threatening to its intended targets, was the request that culprits be found, and perpetrators be outed and held accountable. South Africa, more specifically, requested that the prosecutor “investigate the Situation for the purpose of determining whether one or more specific persons should be charged with the commission of such crimes.”

On May 3, officials from the ICC openly reproached efforts to tamper and modify any opinions on the part of the body regarding its activities. The ICC welcomed, according to Khan, “open communication” with government officials and non-governmental entities, and would only engage in discussions so long as they were “consistent with its mandate under the Rome Statute to act independently and impartially.”

As he continued to explain in his statement, Khan argued “That independence and impartiality are undermined … when individuals threaten to retaliate … should the office, in fulfilment of its mandate, make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction.” He demanded that “all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence its officials cease immediately.”

Netanyahu had previously promised that, under his leadership, “Israel will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.” He regarded any “threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state” as “outrageous.” Going heavy on the forces of light battling those of darkness – a favourite theme of his – the Israeli PM went on to claim that such actions “would set a dangerous precedent that threatens the soldiers and officials of all democracies fighting savage terrorism and wanton aggression.”

Far from threatening democracies of whatever flavour, the actions of the ICC can serve the opposite purpose, holding individuals in high office accountable for egregious crimes in international law. In doing so, it can contribute, in no small part, to efforts in defeating impunity and rebutting brutal and often callous assertions of self-defence.

May 8, 2024 Posted by | Legal, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste at center of testy Nevada Senate race

The Hill , BY NICK ROBERTSON AND ZACK BUDRYK – 05/05/24

Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown is under fire from Democrats for 2022 remarks in which he expressed support for plans to store federal nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Nevada lawmakers from both parties have strongly resisted a federal plan to turn the isolated southwest Nevada mountain — about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas — into a nuclear waste storage facility since the idea was first proposed in the 1980s.

But Brown has expressed support for the idea in the past, and he can be heard in a new recording from his 2022 campaign saying the state risked losing out on an opportunity if it blocked the plans.

“If we don’t act soon, other states … are assessing whether or not they can essentially steal that opportunity from us,” he said in the recording, first obtained by The Los Angeles Times.

Brown, who is seen as a favorite in Nevada’s GOP Senate primary this June, said in a statement to The Hill he was not actively calling for the reopening of Yucca Mountain, but that future proposals should be considered.

“I am not strictly committed to opening Yucca Mountain at this time,” Brown said. “However, I will consider all thoroughly vetted future proposals, with the safety of Nevadans being my top priority, while ensuring the proposals are substantially economically beneficial.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who is running for reelection, quickly seized on the comments. Rosen is seen as vulnerable this fall in a state where former President Trump is up in polls. The Cook Political Report lists her seat as a toss-up.

“For decades, Nevadans across party lines have been clear that we will not allow our state to become the dumping ground for the rest of the nation’s nuclear waste,” Rosen said in a statement. “I’ve been fighting against Washington politicians trying to force nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain since Sam Brown was still living in Texas, and his extreme support for this dangerous and unpopular project underscores how little he understands the needs of our state.”…………………………………………………. more https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4642131-nuclear-waste-at-center-of-testy-nevada-senate-race/

May 8, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The mad waste of public money by UK’s leading nuclear giants to pursue costs against a whistleblower at your expense

But perhaps this is the real reason for using public money in this way is to silence anybody else who might be thinking of exposing the dark secrets inside Sellafield. She is not the only whistleblower.

  by davidhencke

One aspect of the second recent cost hearing against whistleblower and human resources consultant Alison McDermott by Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority which was not covered is the cost to the public and us the taxpayer.

During the hearing Deshpal Panesar, KC Sellafield’s lawyer from Old Square Chambers, rather pompously told the hearing that the fact Sellafield was claiming £20,000 off Alison was ” to protect the public purse”. He and the Nuclear Commissioning Authority which was also claiming £20,000 made a huge point that her “unreasonable behaviour” by pursing them at a tribunal meant she should pay a penalty.

What is now emerging from Freedom of Information requests is that the cost to bring this action far outweighs the money they will receive even if they are 100 per cent successful.

Both nuclear giants have already spent a huge sum – nearly £700,000 of taxpayer’s money – fighting Alison, whose consultancy was terminated, after her report revealed bullying and fear among staff at the nuclear site in Sellafield.

Now it is known from FOI that both organisations have spent £59,000 between them on preparing the case for the second hearing on top of money they had already spent for the first costs hearing. This doesn’t include the cost of hearing itself which is about another £20,000 considering Sellafield’s lawyers Deshpal Paneser. KC charges £5500 a day for the hearing and Emma Mills, from DLA Piper, who charges £3000 a day . The NDA employed another barrister, Rachel Levene and solicitors Pinsent Mason. Plus there were paralegals at the hearing.

Now one would think that after a High Court judge had ruled that the first costs decision was ” unsafe” and said his view should be taken into account by judge Stuart Robertson, who has heard the second hearing, there would be pause for thought. Both nuclear organisations are also lucky they will not face an appeal. So any sane organisation would decide to leave it there.

Instead we have the economic madness, which no commercial company conducting a risk assessment would follow, of throwing more money at bringing a second case when there is not the slightest chance of getting their money back. Indeed even if they were 100 per cent successful they stand to lose £40,000 and that is by no means certain they will get that. It is only that it is our money from the taxpayer they can throw it around like confetti.

So why are they doing it? The decision must have been endorsed by Euan Hutton, the new chief executive.

Despite previously serving as a Mental Health Champion alongside Ms. McDermott to foster a kinder and more supportive work environment, Mr. Hutton is now relentlessly pursuing costs against her.

In various YouTube videos, Mr. Hutton espouses the importance of treating people with kindness, yet his actions towards Ms. McDermott are anything but.  He actually says that “kindness is putting in the time to think about how different people act differently, that’s what kindness is all about”  [second video from 20 seconds onwards].    By hounding her for costs related to her whistleblowing for the second time, he has subjected her to immense stress and anguish, betraying the values he once claimed to champion.

See https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1938802916244720

Now Sellafield receives £6.7 million daily from taxpayers. Mr. Hutton’s decision to waste these funds on a vindictive legal battle against a whistleblower is an egregious misuse of public money. It is a slap in the face to taxpayers who trust Sellafield to use their contributions responsibly.

The Guardian has reported that the National Audit Office will investigate Sellafield’s substantial expenditure.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/15/spending-watchdog-launches-investigation-into-sellafieldI intend to make the National Audit Office aware of this blog post, as it highlights the unethical and hypocritical behaviour of Mr. Hutton. I think the public would strongly disapprove of their money being used to persecute a brave individual who spoke out against wrongdoing.

Mr. Hutton should be held accountable for his actions, which have caused harm to Ms. McDermott and undermined Sellafield’s commitment to employee wellbeing and to a culture of openness.

But perhaps this is the real reason for using public money in this way is to silence anybody else who might be thinking of exposing the dark secrets inside Sellafield. She is not the only whistleblower.

I approached Sellafield and the NDA about this waste of money but both said

“These issues are still subject to legal proceedings. We cannot comment further at this stage.”

May 8, 2024 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons drills

SOTT, Mon, 06 May 2024

An exercise to check the military’s ability to use smaller-range systems was announced by the Defense Ministry on Monday

Russia will test its ability to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced on Monday. The drill will be conducted “in the near future” and was ordered by President Vladimir Putin, the statement said.

Missile forces of the Southern Military District will be directly involved in the exercise. It will also require the participation of military aircraft and the Russian Navy, the ministry said.

The goal of the exercise is to iron out “the practical aspects of the preparation and deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” it added.

The military cited “provocative statements and threats against Russia by certain Western officials” as the reason for the drill. The troops will confirm that they can “ensure unconditional territorial integrity and sovereignty” of the nation, it added.

Moscow has a wide range of nuclear-capable weapons, from long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles to smaller-range tactical nukes. Amid the Ukraine conflict, senior Russian officials, including Putin, have stated that the country’s nuclear doctrine allows the use of these weapons when the existence of the nation is at stake.

The US and its allies have accused Moscow of nuclear saber-rattling. Putin said in March that at no point in the conflict has the situation required such a radical move as a nuclear strike.

Comment: From the same source:
28 Apr, 2024
Macron calls for EU nuclear force

more https://www.sott.net/article/491187-Putin-orders-tactical-nuclear-weapons-drills

May 8, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Inside abandoned ghost town at Fukushima after nuclear power plant meltdown

Tokyo Matilda from Sheffield is one of the few to visit the nuclear ghost town of Fukushima in Japan

Mirror UK, Cecilia Adamou, 5 May 24

Tokyo Matilda, a 20-year-old from Sheffield, England, embarked on a mission to delve into this deserted ghost town of Fukushima in Japan. The area was subject to disaster when the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant nearby went into meltdown following the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, leaking toxic nuclear waste into the environment and deeming it uninhabitable due to radiation.

As residents evacuated the town, never to return, it is now frozen in time and has been left subject to the elements for the 13 years since the catastrophe. What remains is an abandoned, apocalyptic wasteland similar to the setting of the Fallout games and TV series. The only people that remain are those trying to bring it back from extinction.

While visiting the disaster site, Tokyo explored a theme park, a school and even a ramen café that have all been empty since 2011. She said: “It reminded me of Fallout as it had such a heavy apocalyptic feeling. The only people who were walking around were the workers who try everyday to get rid of the radiated soil and to make it safe once again.”

The danger of radiation poisoning was a very real risk for Tokyo as she explored the many sights. She explained: “The hospital was the highest radiated place we explored located in the Red Zone. We had the fear of staying too long and having radiation sickness, I have never been as scared as I was in there.”…………………. more https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/inside-abandoned-ghost-town-fukushima-32696396

May 8, 2024 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Token gesture: Biden puts hold on approved shipments of ammo to Israel

SOTT, Hayden Cunningham, The Post Millennial, Mon, 06 May 2024

The Biden administration has halted a shipment of ammunition previously approved to aid Israel in its war efforts with Hamas.

This suspension of munition delivery is the first of its kind since the beginning of the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas last October, when Hamas attacked Israel, murdering 1,200, and Israel launched a full-scale retaliation. According to two Israeli officials who spoke to Axios, the ammunition shipment was stopped last week.

The White House has yet to officially comment on the decision.

In April, Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic representatives issued a signed letter that called on Biden to halt the sale of weapons to Israel, even as they encourage munitions to be sent to Ukraine. The lawmakers called it “unjustifiable” to approve weapons transfers to Israel after an Israeli airstrike that inadvertently killed several humanitarian workers

This recent move comes amidst growing criticism within President Biden’s own base regarding US support for Israel. As left-wing activists across the country have continually called for the US to withdraw its support from Israel, the Biden administration has appeared to soften its initial support for the Jewish state.

The timing of this decision also follows US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel last Wednesday. During his visit, Blinken held discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about potential military operations in Gaza.

Netanyahu has recently signaled Israel’s intention to launch an invasion of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where there is a checkpoint between Gaza and Egypt that Egypt keep strictly controlled to prevent the flow of Palestinians into their nation. There have been ongoing efforts to negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas and secure the release of hostages, though Hamas has refused many of these attempts.

Comment: Actually it’s Israel who’s turned down most of the proposals. Any deal requiring them to withdraw from Gaza will interfere with their ongoing ethnic cleansing/genocide project.

…………………………………………… Last February, the Biden administration requested assurances from Israel that any US-made weapons would be used in compliance with international law. Israel responded by providing a signed letter in March affirming its commitment to this standard.

Comment: Biden’s floundering campaign is uppermost in the minds of his handlers. Given the unrest across US. campuses over the Palestinian genocide, it seems that he’s been advised to throw them a bone.

 https://www.sott.net/article/491204-Token-gesture-Biden-puts-hold-on-approved-shipments-of-ammo-to-Israel

May 8, 2024 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK’s Nuclear roadmap is a massive detour

UK plan reveals true ‘energy’ agenda is pathway to nuclear weapons sector

By Jonathon Porritt, Beyond Nuclear 6 May 24

After 14 years of Tory mismanagement, the UK finds itself bereft of an energy strategy.

This was finally confirmed in the release of the Government’s new Nuclear Roadmap. At one level, it’s just the same old, same old, the latest in a very long line of PR-driven, more or less fantastical wishlists for new nuclear in the UK. But at another, it’s a total revelation.

For years, a small group of dedicated academics and campaigners have suggested that the UK Government’s Nuclear Energy Strategy is being driven more by the UK’s continuing commitment to an “independent” nuclear weapons capability than by any authoritative energy analysis. For an equal number of years, this was aggressively rebutted by one Energy Minister after another, both Tory and Labour.

The new Nuclear Roadmap dramatically changes all that. It sets to one side any pretence that the links between our civil nuclear programme and our military defence needs were anything other than small-scale – and of no material strategic significance. With quite startling transparency and clarity, the Roadmap not only reveals the full extent of those links, but positively celebrates that co-dependency as a massive plus in our ambition to achieve a Net Zero economy by 2050.

“Startling” is actually an understatement. Such a comprehensive volte-face is rare in policy-making circles. Every effort is usually made by Ministers to obscure the scale (let along the significance) of any such screeching handbrake turns. That is so not the case with the new Roadmap.

Courtesy of the latest forensic work done by Professors Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone at Sussex University (who have been absolutely at the forefront of seeking to bring these links into the public domain over many years – often with mighty little support from mainstream environmental organisations, let alone “independent” commentators), chapter and verse of this volte-face can be laid bare. Just a couple of examples from the Roadmap:

  • “Not only does this Roadmap set a clear path for the growth of nuclear fission…it acknowledges the crucial importance of the nuclear industry to our national security, both in terms of energy supply and the defence nuclear enterprise.”
  • “Government will proactively look for opportunities to align delivery of the civil and nuclear defence enterprises, whilst maintaining the highest standards of non-proliferation.”
  • “To address the commonalities across the civil and defence supply chains, and the potential risk to our respective nuclear programmes due to competing demand for the supply chain, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is working closely with the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Nuclear Sector.”

And there’s a whole lot more than that! As Andy Stirling has said: “Without any reflection on what this says about previous efforts to suppress discussion of this issue, the Government is now openly emphasising its significance.”

Indeed!

As usual, the UK’s ill-informed and unbelievably gullible mainstream media would appear to have missed the significance of this gobsmacking inflection point. So one can hardly expect them to have grasped its even more significant implications for UK energy strategy as a whole. In every single particular.

Let me briefly unpack some of those particulars:

  1. Nuclear

The new Roadmap reads like an outing to a massive nuclear sweet shop. On top of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, we’ll have one more big one. And then we’ll have lots of Small Modular Reactors, all over the country. And we’ll have a new fuel processing plant. And a new Geological Disposal Facility – at some much more distant point. And so on and on. 24 fantastical Gigawatts to be designed and delivered by 2050.

The reality couldn’t be more different:

  • We will indeed end up with Hinkley Point C – at a staggering of cost of somewhere between £26 billion and £30 billion, with consumers paying twice as much for its electricity as they will for offshore wind. And it will almost certainly not come online until the end of the decade, 15 years on from the time it was meant to be up and running.
  • We may possibly get Sizewell C, though the Government cannot currently guarantee the required level of investment. So a Final Investment Decision is unlikely before the next Election. At which point, Starmer may come to his senses and kill off this absurd white elephant.
  • We will never get a third big reactor. The economics are literally impossible to justify.
  • We are unlikely to get more than a couple of hugely expensive Small Modular Reactors, at some indeterminate point in the future, even with a new “flexible approach” to planning and financial inducements. Even that may prove to be an illusion. As Professor Steve Thomas has written: “Advocates of Small Nuclear Reactors claim they are cheaper and easier to build, safer, generate less waste, and will create many jobs compared to existing large reactor designs. These claims are unproven, misleading, or just plain wrong. Worldwide, no commercial design of SMR has even received a firm order yet.”
  • And we may or may not get life extensions for the last five power stations in the “legacy fleet” – subject to regulatory approval, which may not be all that easy given extensive cracking in their reactor cores.

In short, the Roadmap is just a massive diversion from reality. Entailing incalculable opportunity costs. And putting at risk our entire Net Zero by 2050 strategy.

Ministers know all that. But they don’t really care. Our nuclear weapons programme (including upgrading Trident) will be protected as a consequence of this, via an unceasing flow of public money into the civil nuclear cul-de-sac, at a time when our defence budget is already massively overstretched. So who cares about the missing 24GW?

  1. Renewables

We’ll continue to see new investment into renewables here in the UK, despite (not because of) government policy, which has seriously messed up our offshore wind industry, maintained a de facto ban on onshore wind, couldn’t care less about solar, witters on vapidly about tidal without doing anything etc etc.

Meanwhile, on a global basis, renewables continue to boom………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The reasons for this almost complete silence can be traced back to successive governments’ grim intent to hang onto our so-called “independent nuclear deterrent”. At literally any costs……………………………… more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/05/06/nuclear-roadmap-is-massive-detour/

May 7, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | 1 Comment

Military interests are pushing new nuclear power

in this supposedly “civil” strategy—are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government.”

A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be “masked” behind civil programs.

 Rolls Royce even issued a dedicated report, marshaling the case for expensive “small modular reactors” to “relieve the Ministry of Defense of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability.”

The UK government has finally admitted it

By Andy Stirling and Philip Johnstone, 6 May 24,  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/05/06/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power/

The UK government has announced the “biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years.” This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.

Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budget.

So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?

The UK government has for a long time failed even to try to justify support for nuclear power in the kinds of detailed substantive energy terms that were once routine. The last properly rigorous energy white paper was in 2003.

Even before wind and solar costs plummeted, this recognized nuclear as “unattractive.” The delayed 2020 white paper didn’t detail any comparative nuclear and renewable costs, let alone justify why this more expensive option receives such disproportionate funding.

A document published with the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, is also more about affirming official support than substantively justifying it. More significant—in this supposedly “civil” strategy—are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government.”

These pressures are acknowledged by other states with nuclear weapons, but were until now treated like a secret in the UK: civil nuclear energy maintains the skills and supply chains needed for military nuclear programs.

The military has consistently called for civil nuclear

Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.

For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be “back with a vengeance.” Widely criticized for resting on a “secret” process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) effectively warning that the UK “industrial base” for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.

A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be “masked” behind civil programs. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.

In repeated parliamentary hearings, academics, engineering organizations, research centers, industry bodies and trade unions urged continuing civil nuclear as a means to support military capabilities.

In 2017, submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce even issued a dedicated report, marshaling the case for expensive “small modular reactors” to “relieve the Ministry of Defense of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability.”

The government itself has remained coy about acknowledging this pressure to “mask” military costs behind civilian programs. Yet the logic is clear in repeated emphasis on the supposedly self-evident imperative to “keep the nuclear option open”—as if this were an end in itself, no matter what the cost. Energy ministers are occasionally more candid, with one calling civil-military distinctions “artifical” and quietly saying: “I want to include the MoD more in everything we do”.

In 2017, we submitted evidence to a parliamentary public accounts committee investigation of the deal to build Hinkley Point C power plant. On the basis of our evidence, the committee asked the then MoD head (who—notably—previously oversaw civil nuclear contract negotiations) about the military nuclear links. His response:

We are completing the build of the nuclear submarines which carry conventional weaponry. We have at some point to renew the warheads, so there is very definitely an opportunity here for the nation to grasp in terms of building up its nuclear skills. I do not think that that is going to happen by accident; it is going to require concerted government action to make it happen.

This is even more evident in actions than words. For instance hundreds of millions of pounds have been prioritized for a nuclear innovation program and a nuclear sector deal which is “committed to increasing the opportunities for transferability between civil and defense industries.”

An open secret

Despite all this, military pressures for nuclear power are not widely recognized in the UK. On the few occasions when it receives media attention, the link has been officially denied.

Other nuclear-armed states are also striving to maintain expensive military infrastructures (especially around submarine reactors) just when the civilian industry is obsolescing. This is true in the US, France, Russia and China.

Other countries tend to be more open about it, with the interdependence acknowledged at presidential level in the US for instance. French president Emmanuel Macron summarizes: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.”

This is largely why nuclear-armed France is pressing the European Union to support nuclear power. This is why non-nuclear-armed Germany has phased out the nuclear technologies it once lead the world in. This is why other nuclear-armed states are so disproportionately fixated by nuclear power.

These military pressures help explain why the UK is in denial about poor nuclear performance, yet so supportive of general nuclear skills. Powerful military interests—with characteristic secrecy and active PR—are driving this persistence.

Neglect of this picture makes it all the more disturbing. Outside defense budgets, off the public books and away from due scrutiny, expensive support is being lavished on a joint civil-military nuclear industrial base largely to help fund military needs. These concealed subsidies make nuclear submarines look affordable, but electricity and climate action more costly.

The conclusions are not self-evident. Some might argue military rationales justify excessive nuclear costs. But history teaches that policies are more likely to go awry if reasons are concealed. In the UK—where nuclear realities have been strongly officially denied—the issues are not just about energy, or climate, but democracy.

Andy Stirling is Professor of Science & Technology Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex. Philip Johnstone is Research Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex.

May 7, 2024 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Canada’s federal budget -calls nuclear energy “clean” – the height of absurdity!

Nuclear energy never will be ‘clean,’ write Jones and Edwards.

THE HILL TIMES | MONDAY, MAY 6, 2024

The 2024 federal budget contains many references to nuclear energy as
a “clean” source of electricity.  In our view, referring to
nuclear electricity as “clean” is the height of absurdity.

The nuclear fuel chain begins with the mining of uranium from rock
underground where, without human intervention, it would remain safely
locked away from the biosphere. Uranium has many natural radioactive
byproducts, including radium, radon, and polonium-210 that are
discarded in voluminous sandlike “tailings” at uranium mine sites.
These materials are responsible for countless thousands of deaths in
North America alone. Canada has accumulated 220 million tonnes of
these indestructible radioactive mining wastes, easily dispersed by
wind and rain over the next 100,000 years.

Inside a nuclear reactor, uranium atoms are split to produce energy.
The atomic fragments are hundreds of newly created radioactive
poisons, most of them never found in nature before 1940. They make
used fuel millions of times more radioactive than the original
uranium. One used fuel bundle, freshly discharged, will deliver a
lethal dose of radiation in seconds to any unshielded human nearby.
There are hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste irradiated fuel
bundles worldwide and the quantity grows larger each year. There is no
operating repository anywhere in the world for such wastes, but there
are several failed repositories.

Radioactive waste has the “reverse midas touch” turning everything
it touches into more radioactive waste. This includes the nuclear
vessel in which the waste is created, and everything that comes in
contact with the cooling water needed to prevent the waste from
melting down. Containers for radioactive waste become radioactive
waste themselves. All radioactive waste must be kept out of our food,
air and drinking water for countless millennia.

Radioactive atoms are unstable. They disintegrate, throwing off a kind
of subatomic shrapnel called “atomic radiation.” Emissions from
disintegrating atoms damage living cells. Chronic radiation exposure
can cause miscarriages, birth defects, and a host of degenerative
diseases including cancers of all kinds. Genetic damage to eggs or
sperm can transmit defective genes to successive generations.

Plutonium is one of the hundreds of radioactive byproducts created in
used nuclear fuel. It is of special concern because it is the primary
nuclear explosive in nuclear arsenals worldwide. “Reprocessing” of
nuclear fuel waste to extract plutonium is sometimes called
“recycling” but this is disinformation; the resulting waste is
more difficult to manage than the original fuel waste. Many serious
accidents have occurred around the world at reprocessing plants.
Places where extensive reprocessing has occurred are among the most
radioactively contaminated sites on Earth. Plutonium can be used as a
nuclear fuel, but extracting it is a nuclear weapons proliferation
risk.

Managing radioactive waste is difficult and very expensive. The
projected multi-billion-dollar cleanup cost for the legacy waste at
Chalk River, Ont., is the federal government’s biggest environmental
liability by far, exceeding the sum total of all other federal
environmental liabilities across Canada.

The multinational consortium running Canada’s federal nuclear
laboratories is receiving close to $1.5-billion annually, much of it
for managing legacy radioactive wastes. The consortium’s plans
include piling up one million tonnes of waste in a giant mound beside
the Ottawa River and entombing old reactors in concrete and grout
beside major drinking water sources. Many are of the view that the
plans fail to meet the fundamental requirement to isolate waste from
the biosphere and have been met with widespread concern, opposition
and legal challenges. Nuclear energy is not now, never has been, and
never will be “clean.”

The sooner our elected officials come to terms with this fact, the
better for Canada and Canadians. Honesty is the best policy.

May 7, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Hamas will not be defeated for another two to three years: Israeli military sources

Hamas is reasserting civilian control of Khan Yunis following the withdrawal of the Israeli army and the return of some residents to the largely destroyed city

The Cradle, News Desk, MAY 5, 2024

Israeli military sources estimate that Hamas will not be decisively defeated in Gaza until 2026 or 2027, even as Hamas reasserts civilian control of the largely destroyed city of Khan Yunis following the army’s withdrawal, Israeli media reported on 4 May. 

Sources speaking with Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said, “We will not be in Gaza permanently. We’ll return for extensive raids deep into the territory to defeat a terror army built over 15 years.” 

The sources add that “Meanwhile, the achievements of the forces that fought in Gaza are eroding, and there’s no conclusive political solution.”

The comments came amid reports that Hamas is reasserting security control over Khan Yunis following the withdrawal of the Israeli army and the slow return of Palestinians to their homes, or what is left of them, in the southern Gaza City since last month. 

Yedioth Ahronoth reported that for Israel, it is becoming “increasingly difficult to achieve even the more modest goals of the war: reducing Hamas’ civilian, not just military, control, especially after the IDF’s main military operation ended this week, to continue with limited raids.”

The paper added that “The Air Force will not target every municipal worker currently clearing debris from the streets with a tractor, nor will it strike every Gazan head of sanitation or regional education department manager still receiving their salary from Hamas.”

Previous reporting from +972 Magazine indicated that the Air Force was using artificial intelligence to develop target lists to assassinate thousands of low-level Hamas members by bombing their homes at night while they slept with their wives and children. 

Yedioth Ahronoth says the Israeli army now struggles to identify and target the intact internal security mechanisms of Hamas.

It noted a successful case last month in which the air force identified members of Hamas’ internal security services in Shujaiyah’s Kuwait Square last month and immediately launched airstrikes, killing most of them.

The paper also noted the Israeli military assassinated the mayor of the Maghazi refugee camp, Hatem al-Ghamri, for serving as the head of the local emergency committee for Hamas. The committee was responsible for distributing humanitarian aid to the camp’s residents.

“Since the first day of the war, the mayor has been working to provide relief services to tens of thousands of displaced people who sought refuge in the camp,” Mohammad al-Ayedi told the Palestine Chronicle. 

“He directly supervised the central emergency committee of the camp and continued to work diligently until the day of his martyrdom. Indeed, he was killed while fulfilling his mission of providing relief to the displaced,” he added.

However, Yedioth Ahronoth notes, “the challenge of locating and targeting the dispersed workforce of thousands of Hamas operatives is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.”

Instead, video footage and eyewitness reports have emerged of many instances of Israeli drones opening fire and killing unarmed civilians, including children and healthcare workers, as well. 

The paper added that in the markets of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, Hamas operatives are currently maintaining order and preventing price gouging on food amid shortages………………………………………more https://thecradle.co/articles-id/24727—

May 7, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Bans Al Jazeera Journalists, Network, Joining Syria and Iran as Repressive Regime

INFORMED COMMENT, JUAN COLE, 05/06/2024

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Committee to Protect Journalists on Sunday condemned the Israeli cabinet’s decision to ban the Al Jazeera news network in Israel. The network’s office was closed and its equipment was confiscated. Israeli cable channels were forced to delete Al Jazeera from their offerings, and even its website has been blocked for Israeli residents. Since Israeli news channels do not show the effects of the government’s total war on Gaza civilians, the Qatar-based channel had been one of the few sources of comprehensive coverage of the Gaza campaign for those Israelis who know English or Arabic.

On April 1, the Israeli parliament, dominated by the country’s far right parties, passed a law permitting the government to halt the broadcast of foreign channels in Israel “if the content is deemed to be a threat to the country’s security during the ongoing war.” Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi called Al Jazeera an “incitement channel” and a “mouthpiece of Hamas.” It was a ridiculous charge for anyone who actually watches the live stream of Al Jazeera English.

Carlos Martinez de la Serna, the New York-based director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said, “CPJ condemns the closure of Al-Jazeera’s office in Israel and the blocking of the channel’s websites. This move sets an extremely alarming precedent for restricting international media outlets working in Israel. The Israeli cabinet must allow Al-Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime.”

The Israeli military has killed some 140 journalists in Gaza. Since it has sophisticated drone surveillance and facial recognition programs and other forms of electronic surveillance, Al Jazeera reports that some of the surviving journalists are convinced that their vehicles and convoys were deliberately targeted despite being clearly identified as “press.”

One of the corruption cases being pursued in Israeli courts against Netanyahu has to do with his pressuring an Israeli newspaper to give him favorable coverage by threatening that otherwise the late casino mogul Sheldon Adelson would flood the market with free newspapers, hurting the profits of Yedioth Ahronoth.

Banning foreign news channels and reporters is not a new thing in the Middle East, or the wider world, but it has usually been done by governments that the US denounces as autocratic. Israel has now joined their ranks as a censorship regime………………………………………….

more https://www.juancole.com/2024/05/jazeera-journalists-repressive.html—

May 7, 2024 Posted by | Israel, media | Leave a comment

The Summer of Student Activist Protests

This power center for the U.S. Empire – Capitol Hill – presents serious students with an opportunity to educate their elders.

Make U.S. engagements in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major electoral campaign issue for November.

By Ralph Nader, May 3, 2024,  https://nader.org/2024/05/03/the-summer-of-student-activist-protests/

At many college campuses, students are protesting in opposition to the Biden Administration’s unconditional backing, with weapons and diplomatic cover, of Netanyahu’s continuing serial war crimes slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, most of them children and women. Hundreds of faculty members are defending these valiant youngsters and criticizing excessively harsh crackdowns by failed University presidents who are calling in outside police.

With graduations approaching, pro-Netanyahu lobbies and cowed University heads (like Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, who makes a salary of over $2,000 an hour) expect the students to disperse from campus for the summer and end their demonstrations.

The Israeli genocidal crimes against Gazans will continue and intensify if Israel invades Rafah. Millions of refugees will suffer. What will become of the organized student calls for a permanent ceasefire, greatly increased humanitarian aid and cessation of U.S. weapons shipments? The students who leave their campus protests can and should focus on members of Congress in their Districts and in Washington.

In two weeks, hundreds of Congressional summer student interns will begin arriving to work in Congressional offices. Congress is the decades-long reservoir for Israeli colonial aggression. Moreover, Congress, under AIPAC’s extraordinary pressure, has blocked testimony by prominent Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates since 1948. Not once have any of these peace advocates, many of whom are Israeli retired cabinet ministers, mayors, security and military leaders been invited to a Congressional Committee Hearing.

This power center for the U.S. Empire – Capitol Hill – presents serious students with an opportunity to educate their elders. Such an opportunity materialized during the Vietnam War when Congressional interns in the late 1960s organized a highly visible petition drive and engaged in peaceful protests.

Back in the Congressional Districts, the access is easier and available to many more students and faculty. Because Congress is in “recess” for much of the summer – Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and the entire month of August to Labor Day – students and citizens can demand public meetings preceded by formal summons to Senators and Representatives. (See my column “Sending Citizens Summons to Members of Congress”).

Five hundred to a thousand clearly legible signatures with the individuals’ occupations and emails should get these politicians to your well-prepared community meetings.

There would be no more notorious incommunicado behavior, laced with robo-letters to inquiring constituents. Instead, there would be person-to-person questioning, dialogue, and responses where evasions and sweet talk will be more difficult for the lawmakers to utilize.

The subject matter of these public meetings can extend beyond ghastly scenes of dead, dying, sick, and starving families in Gaza to Biden’s foreign and military policies. Our government is fueling an Empire producing disasters that are conducted in the name of the powerless American people, whose sovereign powers under our Constitution are delegated to Congress and the Executive Branch. The abuse of this power starts with Congress.

Nothing can compare to face-to-face meetings with the lawmakers. Letters, phone calls, and emails rarely can be relied on to reach them directly – that is if you are not a big campaign contributor. Besides, unlike in the past, today’s legislative staffers are much more likely to ignore these missives without even an acknowledgment. (See The Incommunicados report: https://incommunicadoswatch.org/).

A people’s town meeting has an agenda set by the people. Some suggestions follow:

1. There have been no Congressional hearings since before October 7th on the overall policies in the Middle East pursued by the White House and Congress. The House and Senate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees have not been active. Instead, there have been show hearings berating University presidents to stifle free speech on their campuses and answer hypothetical questions about anti-semitism against Jews but not the other ongoing Congressionally weaponized anti-semitism against Gazan Arabs, who are Semites, being annihilated in that tiny enclave. Disgraceful! Demand public hearings for the citizenry.

2. Make U.S. engagements in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major electoral campaign issue for November. This is a major opportunity to get the direct attention of the 535 lawmakers and to push them to stop kicking the can down the road. The decades-long control of Congress by the “Israeli-government-can-do-no-wrong lobby” must end. There is too much massive, preventable suffering being ignored in the Middle East, too much danger of wider regional wars involving the super-powers, and too much damage to civil liberties and democratic processes in our own country to avoid these matters any longer.

3. The students and teachers will find allies in their Congressional Districts from long-time advocates like the American Friends Committee (Quakers), the Unitarians, united Jewish, Christian, and Muslim peace groups, the increasing numbers of outspoken labor union leaders, and just plain Americans fed up with the costly U.S. Empire and its military-industrial complex (remember President Eisenhower’s warnings).

People want their tax dollars returned to the crucial public necessities back home. They don’t like big business controlling Congress and getting away with looting Uncle Sam by their out-of-control greed and power. Over 70% of Americans believe these big companies have too much control over their lives including many liberal and conservative families.

Larger reforms, redirections, and horizons of society often start with one compelling abuse or outrageous travesty of justice. This has occurred in the labor, farmer, consumer, environmental, and civil rights movements throughout our history.

There will be high-visibility protests outside the National Democratic Party Convention in Chicago and probable demonstrations at the National Republican Party Convention in Milwaukee this summer. But the laser-focused citizen pressure should be on those 535 members of YOUR Congress, their local offices, and their staff.

Change Congress and you change America! That is leverage!

May 7, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Enforcing Silence on Genocide

The U.S. public should by now be realizing that instead of stopping genocide, U.S. institutional and media authority is actively stamping out cries to stop the mass murder being committed with U.S. complicity, writes Elizabeth Vos.

By Elizabeth Vos, Consortium News, May 4, 2024,  https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/04/enforcing-silence-on-genocide/

Developments on university campuses and in Congress this week showed that the U.S. government’s top priority is not protecting students or civilian lives in Gaza, but to protect Israel’s ability to continue its unimpeded slaughter.

Anti-genocide student protestors at Columbia University, demanding Columbia divest from Israel, occupied the campus’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday and renamed it Hind’s Hall after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza earlier this year. The Columbia protest has inspired more than 40 other anti-genocide university encampments across the country and in other nations.

On the morning the students occupied Hamilton Hall, MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski compared the student protests to Jan. 6, calling for authorities to “just start arresting people.” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti Defamation League, echoed the comparison in the same MSNBC segment. Other supporters of Israel also made the same Jan. 6 anaolgy on social media early Tuesday morning.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon wrote on X that the Columbia protest “feels January 6th ish to me” because the protesters had occupied a building. Not a federal government building, but a university hall. Has Lemon not heard of a sit-in?

Missing was the most apt and obvious comparison: the occupation of the same Columbia hall took place 56 years to the day since it was the site of a police crackdown on an historic student occupation against the Vietnam War.

Columbia University itself commemorates the anti-Vietnam War occupation of the same building by student protesters in 1968 on their own website. Nonetheless, the NYPD descended on the Hall on Tuesday night at the direct request of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik.

[See: The Israeli Connection to the Raid on Columbia University]

All the comparisons to Jan. 6 came less than 24 hours before the brutal crackdown at Columbia University and the City College of New York by the NYPD Tuesday night, in which almost 300 people were arrested.

Following the New York City arrests, CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash argued on air that the protests were “harkening back to the 1930’s in Europe,” claiming some Jewish people in the U.S. “feel unsafe,” words that completely echoed those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

How unsafe did students at the University of Pennsylvania feel when a Zionist counter protester sprayed their belongings with an unknown substance? 

How unsafe did students feel at multiple universities when police violently arrested professors trying to shield them? In one case in St. Louis, police broke the ribs of a 65-year-old Southern Illinois professor.

How safe did UCLA students feel when they were attacked with fireworks and bats by counter protesters?

In addition to the repulsive comparison with Nazis, Bash’s claim omits the context of previous legitimate antiwar protests that acted virtually identically to the current-era largely peaceful student actions.

These portrayals also excuse the police brutality that followed hours later and has continued since. Police reportedly allowed Zionist counter protesters to violently attack the UCLA encampment for hours without intervention on Tuesday night, only to clear the encampment the next evening using extreme force that included shooting students at close range with rubber bullets. 

Bash and the rest of the talking heads focused on the feelings of Zionists in the U.S., deflecting from the horror taking place in Gaza, further dehumanizing civilians there.

The horror on the ground in Gaza is beyond imagination. We can’t say how many Palestinians have been killed, as the Gaza health authorities were forced to stop counting months ago when the healthcare system there collapsed under Israel’s assault. We’ve been using the ‘15,000 children have died’ number for months, there’s no telling how many have been killed, maimed, or orphaned to date.

The experience of witnessing this ceaseless genocide in the same moment that protests against it are violently put down was summed up by one social media user:

“I am watching a toddler die on a table in a field hospital in Rafah with half her face blown apart while listening to college students fight tears reporting on a police assault on their campus for protesting that, and I feel like I am losing my fucking mind.”

Also unmentioned by Morning Joe and Dana Bash is the fact that Israel’s prime minister is being actively shielded by the U.S. from being charged by the International Criminal Court.

It doesn’t stop there: corporate media and police are not the only parts of the establishment trying to silence students and wider criticism of Israel.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that, if made law, will codify a definition of anti-Semitism created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) into Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law.


This would change the current definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel as hate speech. The IHRA sets out 11 examples of anti-Semitism.

Critics argue that the bill’s language is vague and would reportedly allow the federal Department of Education to restrict funding and other resources to campuses perceived as tolerating so-called “anti-Semitism,” not to mention the disbarring of discourse on social media platforms by citing “hate speech.” Multiple human rights groups have decried the bill. 

The latest House bill is an addition to the anti-BDS laws already in place across 38 states, many of which impact speech on university campuses. One example can be found in Arkansas, where a 2017 anti-BDS law forces speakers at the University of Arkansas to sign an anti-BDS pledge, or they will not be paid.

This resulted in legal action, but the Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear the case, allowing the law to stand in deference to the interests of a foreign nation.

Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn went further, calling for: “Any student who has promoted terrorism or engaged in terrorists acts on behalf of Hamas should be immediately be added to the terrorist watch list and placed on the TSA No Fly List.”

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar denounced Blackburn’s sentiments as “insanely dangerous.” But Blackburn wasn’t alone. House Speaker Mike Johnson also called on the F.B.I. to investigate protesters and suggested the National Guard should be deployed.

We’ve collectively realized that no one, no protective force nor institution of power is going to stop Israel’s violence.

The U.S. public should by now be realizing that instead of stopping genocide, U.S. institutional and media authority is actively stamping out cries to stop the mass murder being committed with U.S. complicity.

Covering for Israel is evidently more important to U.S. leaders than international law, than the lives of civilians or students, than freedom of speech, and even, it seems, their own re-election as they resist polls showing a majority of Americans want an end to the killing in Gaza.

Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News.

May 7, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Brutal 48C heatwave takes its toll on east Asia

East Asia is in the throes of an intense heatwave that is causing deadly
heatstroke, damaging crops, and has exposed an old town at the bottom of a
dried-up reservoir in the Philippines. The record temperatures are the
result of climate change, made worse by the El Niño weather phenomenon.
The town of Chauk in Myanmar recorded a temperature on Monday of 48.2C —
the highest ever measured there, and one of numerous records set across the
region. In the capital of the Philippines, Manila, a new high of 38.8C was
recorded. Some 48,000 state schools across the Philippines were closed all
week, as the authorities advised people to avoid going outside. The
increased use of air conditioning is putting pressure on the electricity
grid in the nation’s largest island, Luzon.

Times 3rd May 2024

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brutal-48c-heatwave-takes-its-toll-on-east-asia-ct70rrg0p

May 7, 2024 Posted by | ASIA, climate change | Leave a comment

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